I'm ok with it. At the same time it's very inequitable. There are lots of stuff that has no nutritional value and yet is purchased with food stamps (coffee comes to my mind at this time of the day - could you imagine banning coffee purchases from those dependent on food stamps? ...It would be an angry angry day in the ol USofA)

No. Either we revamp the whole food stamp system so that only 100% healthy purchases can be made, or we let the poor people have their soda. Soda is a very arbitrary line to draw. Is it the caffeine? The sugar? The carbonation? What about caffeine free, sugar free soda? What about sparkling San Pellegrino water flavored with fruit juice? What about the fact that apple juice from concentrate is just as processed and has even more sugar (and *********

Like I said, though, I fully support an all or nothing approach, if food stamp recipients were only allowed to purchase foods that had been evaluated as healthy, and if the government gave a little bit of effort to educate its citizens about what is healthy to eat and what should be eaten in moderation. Unfortunately, "moderation" is a very dirty word in a capitalist society so I doubt big time that any of Coca Cola's/corn's lobbyists would let any form of this ever pass to see the light of day.

I'm not. It's food stamps, not WIC. The over-involved hand of the nanny state doesn't need to reach in here to decide that apple juice is "healthy" but diet soda isn't. The "soda is evil" science is shaky at best. Might turn out to be completely accurate, but no one knows yet. Cigarettes, sure, no food stamps. Soda? A softball example of what can go wrong with social welfare programs.

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Disclaimer:

To make a long story short, I don't take any responsibility for anything I post here. It's not news, it's not truth, it's not serious. It's parody. It's satire. It's bitter. It's angsty. Your mother's a *****. You like to jack off dogs. That's right, you heard me. You like to grab that dog by the bone and rub it like a ski pole. Your dad? ***. Your priest? Straight. **** off and let me post. It's not true, it's all in good fun. Now go away.

I'm not. It's food stamps, not WIC. The over-involved hand of the nanny state doesn't need to reach in here to decide that apple juice is "healthy" but diet soda isn't. The "soda is evil" science is shaky at best. Might turn out to be completely accurate, but no one knows yet. Cigarettes, sure, no food stamps. Soda? A softball example of what can go wrong with social welfare programs.

What can go wrong is that the soda companies will add some useless vitamin supplement to mountain dew and sell it as a nutritional drink. Loopholes would abound in any 'no soda' for food stamp legislation.

I'm ok with it because soda sales are huge, hugely huge. Disallowing it's purchase by food stamps could actually bring about a cultural change - for the better. Apple juice not so much.

No. I think it's too much. I also think it would be very hard to enforce and loopholes would abound. I also don't want to send the message that people on food stamps aren't trusted to make any choices on their own, I think that's ultimately destructive.

What Smash and Xsarus said. We can encourage people to make healthy lifestyle choices all day long, but ultimately, it's their choice. To arbitrarily single out certain food or drink simply because it's a popular target will cause more trouble than it will prevent. Besides, it's incredibly easy to find a friend who will pay cash for your soda in exchange for food stuffs purchased with your government money. It wouldn't actually solve any problems. Gbaji and fellow republican parrots tout the dangers of big government 24/7, citing social welfare programs as a prime example. While I disagree that social welfare is unnecessary or even excessive, I would place the debate over excluding soda from food stamp purchases squarely in the "excessively large government" spotlight.

No. I think it's too much. I also think it would be very hard to enforce and loopholes would abound.

Would it? I imagine it'd be the same way any other items are excluded: their SKU is flagged not to accept it as payment. The cash register can figure out to tax it at a higher rate (here in IL, soda and candy is taxed at the standard rate, not the grocery rate) so I'm sure it can figure out how to accept payment.

BrownDuck wrote:

Besides, it's incredibly easy to find a friend who will pay cash for your soda in exchange for food stuffs purchased with your government money.

While true on an individual basis, in reality your average grocery shopping mom isn't going to be trading shady teens a box of food stamp snack cakes for a two liter of Coke outside the Safeway.

I'll say though that this isn't a topic I particularly care about. My gut instinct says "sure" but I wouldn't lose a moment of sleep if it wasn't the case.

I'll say though that this isn't a topic I particularly care about. My gut instinct says "sure" but I wouldn't lose a moment of sleep if it wasn't the case.

Selfishly, I don't really care about it either. I don't use food stamps nor do any of the people I care about. I also don't drink soda.

However, if I did use food stamps and someone threatened my coffee supply it would put me at risk of going ballistic.

My Gov has just put forward a bill to ban soda sales from food stamps. I don't see it as a 'big government' getting in your face thing. It's food stamps. There are all sorts of prohibitions on consumable type items whose purchase is prohibited with food stamps. The ease of abuse or fraudulence is really not a reason to go forward with it. It's not specific to soda. If someone wants to sell their food stamps for cash to buy something else and that something else is 'soda' well then I guess they got a bad soda addiction.

It is seemingly arbitrary however to single out 'soda'.

In an effort to keep my new year resolution alive for at least another week, I'm thinking maybe this would be a good topic for a capstone paper. It's fairly well bounded but touches on lots of public policy criteria.

I'll say though that this isn't a topic I particularly care about. My gut instinct says "sure" but I wouldn't lose a moment of sleep if it wasn't the case.

Jack booted soda ****!

____________________________

Disclaimer:

To make a long story short, I don't take any responsibility for anything I post here. It's not news, it's not truth, it's not serious. It's parody. It's satire. It's bitter. It's angsty. Your mother's a *****. You like to jack off dogs. That's right, you heard me. You like to grab that dog by the bone and rub it like a ski pole. Your dad? ***. Your priest? Straight. **** off and let me post. It's not true, it's all in good fun. Now go away.

Unless I miss my guess, fountain sodas are already forbidden (because they're for "immediate consumption"), right? I wonder if individual small bottles (you know, the ones in the fridges near the checkout lines) are also?

For the very simple reason that if you ban soda you're going to start having to draw arbitrary and ever changing lines to what can and can't be bought with food stamps and you're not going to get people to eat healthier unless they want to.

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Theophany wrote:YOU'RE AN ELITIST @#%^ AETHIEN, NO WONDER YOU HAVE NO FRIENDS AND PEOPLE HATE YOU. someproteinguy wrote:Aethien you take more terrible pictures than a Japanese tourist. Astarin wrote:One day, Maz, you'll learn not to click on anything Aeth links.

No. It's a slippery slope, you see, as there's always a healthier food. So, once the government crosses that line, and says that it's going to regulate what the poor eat in order to improve their health, then there's no stopping the slide.

First they'll restrict soda.

Then they'll make them drink health shakes.

Then they'll make them eat a balanced, nutritional meal that trims fat and improves muscle growth.

Then they'll make them go to the gym.

Pretty soon, we'll have an army of super-hobos to contend with. They'll rise up and cast us all out of our ivory towers.

And from the work pits, where we toil under the watchful eye of some svelt uber-bum with a whip, we'll mutter under our breath:

For the very simple reason that if you ban soda you're going to start having to draw arbitrary and ever changing lines to what can and can't be bought with food stamps

No, you don't. "No soda". There, you're done. Not every change has to beget more change.

As I mentioned, Illinois (and I assume some other states) charges soda and candy at a different tax rate than groceries. This hasn't led to some state-wide chaos of determining what the tax rate of caramel apples should be or thrown the tax code into disarray over flavored water. They decided "soda and candy get standard taxes" and that was it. It may be "arbitrary" but it's not "ever changing".

No, you don't. "No soda". There, you're done. Not every change has to beget more change.

As I mentioned, Illinois (and I assume some other states) charges soda and candy at a different tax rate than groceries. This hasn't led to some state-wide chaos of determining what the tax rate of caramel apples should be or thrown the tax code into disarray over flavored water. They decided "soda and candy get standard taxes" and that was it. It may be "arbitrary" but it's not "ever changing".

That's all well and good for you mustachioed sausage and pirogi eaters, but these are obviously not direct parallels. Taxing at a higher rate and very incrementally increasing the price of an item already not really purchased based on price (no one gives a **** that soda costs 14 cents a metric ton to produce) is not akin to literally legislating customers for that product out of existence, and thus, because of the increased severity of the statutory penalty, should also meet a higher standard for enactment. We can agree that taxing beer an additional 5 cents a bottle and the 18th amendment aren't really comparable, can't we?

Also, your piddly little state is widely known to be a hotbed of socialism. In Real America; Honey Boo Boo America, this sort of thing will be met with armed revolt.

Are you ready for that blood on your hands, Joph? Because, let me tell you, no amount of Green River is going to wash it off, son.

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Disclaimer:

To make a long story short, I don't take any responsibility for anything I post here. It's not news, it's not truth, it's not serious. It's parody. It's satire. It's bitter. It's angsty. Your mother's a *****. You like to jack off dogs. That's right, you heard me. You like to grab that dog by the bone and rub it like a ski pole. Your dad? ***. Your priest? Straight. **** off and let me post. It's not true, it's all in good fun. Now go away.

As I mentioned, Illinois (and I assume some other states) charges soda and candy at a different tax rate than groceries. This hasn't led to some state-wide chaos of determining what the tax rate of caramel apples should be or thrown the tax code into disarray over flavored water. They decided "soda and candy get standard taxes" and that was it. It may be "arbitrary" but it's not "ever changing".

This was more or less where my answer came from. I think we touched on this in an earlier thread. In California, they do not charge sales tax on "staple goods". So milk, flour, bread, water, uncooked/prepared food, etc have no sales tax, while everything else does. I don't support a specific targeting of "soda" in this regard, but that anything which isn't a basic food necessity (which soda, fancy bottled water, beer, etc are not) should have a sales tax attached, and thus should not be purchasable with food stamps. Now, I'm not sure if that's actually the case in terms of food stamps here, but I have no problem with it being so.

You're leveraging an already existing system in place. If you've decided that certain things are not necessary and are luxuries, then food stamps should not be used for them. Obviously, in states which don't already have something like this, they'd need to come up with restrictions. But I don't think it should be "ban soda", but "food stamps can only be used for <insert standard here>".

#22gbaji,
Posted:Jan 02 2013 at 5:06 PM, Rating: Sub-Default, (Expand Post) Really? Legislating restrictions on what people can buy on the public's dime should require a higher standard than legislating economic penalties for purchasing decisions people make with their own money? In typical Smash fashion, you've managed to completely miss the point (happy new year btw!). A government deciding that it will artificially increase the price of goods I buy with my own money because some interest group thinks it's bad for me is a far far greater intrusion on my liberty. A government taking money from me and giving it to other people (in the form of food stamps) to buy stuff is a far greater intrusion on my liberty as well. There is no intrusion of liberty on the person receiving the food stamps at all because... wait for it... it's not their money.

If people want to waste their limited government food provisions on Soda, then by all means let them waste it on Soda.

That's a great sentiment until some government bean counting group determines that the current level of funding for food stamps isn't sufficient to ensure that recipients are receiving their RDA of various food groups, or whatever criteria they decide to use this year and decide that they must increase funding.

Most people who receive food stamps do have jobs. They just earn below a minimum that the state decides qualifies them for food assistance. They are free to choose to spend their own money on soda if it's really that important to them to have it. I don't think it's unreasonable for a program with the stated intention to prevent people from going hungry due to lack of money to buy food to limit itself to only those things necessary to prevent people from going hungry due to lack of money to buy food.

I just find this whole discussion interesting because my family grew up pretty poor. We never were on food stamps, but guess what? We never drank soda either. We drank water. Sometimes, we mixed in some instant tea for a bit of flavor. But mostly we drank water. Do you know why? Because we could not afford it. The very concept of people on food stamps complaining because they can't buy soda with the stamps is laughable to me. Do without. You wont starve to death if you don't have soda to drink.

It absolutely should be banned. Its not food, and it has no nutritional value. Its a completely unneccessary peroduct, and shouldn't be traded for food stamps, which are meant to purchase food, not fizzy sugar water. If they want soda, let them buy it with money.

Either we revamp the whole food stamp system so that only 100% healthy purchases can be made, or we let the poor people have their soda. Soda is a very arbitrary line to draw. Is it the caffeine? The sugar? The carbonation? What about caffeine free, sugar free soda? What about sparkling San Pellegrino water flavored with fruit juice? What about the fact that apple juice from concentrate is just as processed and has even more sugar (and *********

This. Initially against allowing the purchase of soda, but unless the entire system is redone, as it should be, then randomly banning certain things is a waste of effort that should be spent on other things.

So this ban on soda's by states or even cities requires a waiver from the feds. Apparently the feds rejected NYC's attempt to ban soda from food stamps sales. They said it was too large and complex of an experiment. Lol....ever seen dot shipping regs?

Quote:

Jessica Shahin, an associate administrator in the Agriculture Department, wrote that the waiver the city sought was denied because of the logistical difficulty of sorting out which beverages could or could not be purchased with food stamps and because it would be hard to gauge how effective the step was in reducing obesity. As an alternative, Ms. Shahin suggested the federal government could work with the city on other efforts to encourage consumers to make “healthy choices.”

I don't have a problem with the people not getting their soda - it's food stamps - those who dole them out can put restrictions on their use. It's the arbitrariness of choosing soda that really needs to be argued. There's a good case for soda having special treatment just based on the pure volume of consumption - it points a big old fat finger at addiction.

If a ban went nationwide, the soda companies would waste no time in redefining their soda to not be called soda. But still those who pay for their soda will not want their soda called something else - gees remember the whole 'new coke' fiasco?

Here's the solution, with food stamps you can only buy government sanctioned soda - BamaSoda.

In October, city and state officials proposed a two-year experiment to see if the prohibition would reduce obesity among people who buy their groceries with food stamps. Dr. Farley said that about 57 percent of adults in the city and 40 percent of the children in its public schools were overweight or obese, and that obesity was especially rampant in low-income neighborhoods. Limiting consumption of sodas and other drinks with high sugar content, he argued, could help reverse that trend.

You know what else would help reverse that trend? Reduce the dollar amount of the food stamps (or eliminate them entirely). Nothing like hunger to make the choice between soda and food easier to make. Clearly, if people are buying soda with food stamps (to the point that you think it's causing an obesity problem), they don't really need those food stamps, right?

Here's my (totally non-serious) plan. Make a new rule that for any food to be eligible for food stamps, that industry/manufacturer will have to lobby to justify its eligibility. Obviously the soda industry will spend tons of money on ludicrous claims, and the whole wheat bread association will barely need to expend any effort.

Then, congress turns around and says "Haha, fooled you. The industries that sent the most lobbyists to DC are banned."

The soda thing bothered me for a while, until I posted something on facebook about it, and one of my best friends pointed out that he uses soda as a substitution to nausea medication which are way more expensive, for his Crohn's. Now granted, most people who buy soda with their FS card are not doing it for that purpose, but it makes you think about alternate purposes for different foods that most people think are unhealthy. Candy for example, diabetics often use to keep their blood sugar from crashing.

I will say though, that I think it is completely bizarre and ****** up that people can use their FS card on an iced coffee at my work. And not just iced coffee, but any of our cold drinks. Hot ones don't work obviously. Considering how expensive starbucks drinks are, I think it's an abuse for people to use their card on it. I don't know if I'd say we should ban it though. I just think it's wrong for people to do it. And I have a couple customers who do it on a fairly regular basis.

Or, y'know, your definition of "poor" is different than everybody else's.

gbaji needs to come with his own glossary.

Shh... the conservative bubble relies on an ingrained perception that one struggled just as much as all those grubby paupers, but persevered through being better than them. If you pop it, his fragile ego might collapse!

Yeah, it's like conservatives pretend they were the only ones who worked as children and teenagers whenever they give their "I worked hard and struggled too" spiel.

My family had a newspaper route to earn extra income. They hired the neighborhood kids as well as me and my sisters to roll them up and slip them into the little plastic baggies. All us kids were paid a quarter a stack. It was boring manual labor, but it was candy money for most of us - none of us were so poor that we didn't have enough food at home, except for the two kids who came down from the trailer park a mile away, in sort of dirty smelly clothes. THOSE kids were poor, and the couple of bucks they'd earn from folding papers went to buy bread and milk since their crackhead parents didn't care.

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FFXI: Catwho on Bismarck: Retired December 2014

Thayos wrote:

I can't understand anyone who skips the cutscenes of a Final Fantasy game. That's like going to Texas and not getting barbecue.

The soda thing bothered me for a while, until I posted something on facebook about it, and one of my best friends pointed out that he uses soda as a substitution to nausea medication which are way more expensive, for his Crohn's. Now granted, most people who buy soda with their FS card are not doing it for that purpose, but it makes you think about alternate purposes for different foods that most people think are unhealthy. Candy for example, diabetics often use to keep their blood sugar from crashing.

Holy ****, you're a gullible fucking mess. Listen, I'm only very peripherally aware of your existence, but I'd like to offer you some advice that you'll almost surely ignore. This thing you've let yourself become, it's not ok. This caricature of a manic pixie enlightened spirit or whatever the fuck it's supposed to be, it doesn't work. It's transparent posing. Completely transparent. As I said, you'll ignore my advice, I understand that, but someday you're (hopefully) going to grow out of this crushingly insecure, cutting yourself for attention, pretending to be bisexual, letting guys fuck you at parties because they jingled a set of keys near you long enough to distract you, phase of your life. When you do, you're going to look back at your younger years and wonder "was it worth it?". I'm here to tell you; the answer will be no. Do something more interesting with this time that society sort of allows you to make mistakes in. Hard drugs or something. At least then you might end up with some character at the end of it.

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Disclaimer:

To make a long story short, I don't take any responsibility for anything I post here. It's not news, it's not truth, it's not serious. It's parody. It's satire. It's bitter. It's angsty. Your mother's a *****. You like to jack off dogs. That's right, you heard me. You like to grab that dog by the bone and rub it like a ski pole. Your dad? ***. Your priest? Straight. **** off and let me post. It's not true, it's all in good fun. Now go away.

The soda thing bothered me for a while, until I posted something on facebook about it, and one of my best friends pointed out that he uses soda as a substitution to nausea medication which are way more expensive, for his Crohn's. Now granted, most people who buy soda with their FS card are not doing it for that purpose, but it makes you think about alternate purposes for different foods that most people think are unhealthy. Candy for example, diabetics often use to keep their blood sugar from crashing.

Holy sh*t, you're a gullible fucking mess. Listen, I'm only very peripherally aware of your existence, but I'd like to offer you some advice that you'll almost surely ignore. This thing you've let yourself become, it's not ok. This caricature of a manic pixie enlightened spirit or whatever the fuck it's supposed to be, it doesn't work. It's transparent posing. Completely transparent. As I said, you'll ignore my advice, I understand that, but someday you're (hopefully) going to grow out of this crushingly insecure, cutting yourself for attention, pretending to be bisexual, letting guys fuck you at parties because they jingled a set of keys near you long enough to distract you, phase of your life. When you do, you're going to look back at your younger years and wonder "was it worth it?". I'm here to tell you; the answer will be no. Do something more interesting with this time that society sort of allows you to make mistakes in. Hard drugs or something. At least then you might end up with some character at the end of it.

I might actually agree with your assessment of PigtailsOfDoom, but seriously, for someone who claims to be super intelligent, super well off, I think it's funny that you feel the need to come on to an internet forum and berate other posters the way you do. Overcompensation is my bet, but I'm sure there are a myriad of possible explanations. Either way, you're just as much of a ******** as the people you pretend to look down upon.

I might actually agree with your assessment of PigtailsOfDoom, but seriously, for someone who claims to be super intelligent, super well off, I think it's funny that you feel the need to come on to an internet forum and berate other posters the way you do. Overcompensation is my bet, but I'm sure there are a myriad of possible explanations. Either way, you're just as much of a @#%^tard as the people you pretend to look down upon.

You're new around here, aren't you.

Thanks for the chuckle Smash.

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Some people are like slinkies, they aren't really good for anything, but they still bring a smile to your face when you push them down the stairs.

I might actually agree with your assessment of PigtailsOfDoom, but seriously, for someone who claims to be super intelligent, super well off, I think it's funny that you feel the need to come on to an internet forum and berate other posters the way you do. Overcompensation is my bet, but I'm sure there are a myriad of possible explanations. Either way, you're just as much of a @#%^tard as the people you pretend to look down upon.

Would be better if he were to just rate down a few of her posts to let her know that someone on this board doesn't like something about her or what she says, disagrees with her opinion or simply dislikes her posting style?

Yes, I imagine it would be. The idea that someone exists who is superior to you in effectively every measurable way is likely something beyond your capacity to imagine. The idea that I might eschew subtlety in favor of bluntness by design, not as some sort of subconscious mechanism beyond my control, must be equally unthinkable.

It's important to know one's limits I find. You seem to have missed that developmental stage of life. Just as while it's a pleasant thought if we work hard enough at something we can do whatever we want in life, it really isn't the case. You understand that, right?

You weren't going to be a starting NBA player no matter how hard you worked at basketball as a child. You trying to understand my motivation for doing absolutely anything is akin to this. No matter how much work you put into it, there's really no way you'll ever be better than chance at guessing.

If I was concerned with being well liked, I could most more tactfully, have no fear. If I wanted to be loved I could manipulate things to that scenario also. Trivially. The reality is that I'm not concerned with being well liked. Legitimately. Not in a defensive "I'm worthless, what's the point" sort of way. I don't require the approval or support of random strangers who I share a discussion forum with. You apparently do, and that's fine. I hope that offers you some value. If it was my daughter I wouldn't be so blunt. Also, if it was daughter I would give a fuc[/i][/i]k about the outcome. As it is, I don't, I do find posts made by cartoon character that contribute nothing, not even humor annoying and pointless. Hence the reply.

Does that clear it up for you, ace? If not, let me know, and I'll see if I can film some sort of snack cake puppet show that might hold your interest long enough to get the point across.

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Disclaimer:

To make a long story short, I don't take any responsibility for anything I post here. It's not news, it's not truth, it's not serious. It's parody. It's satire. It's bitter. It's angsty. Your mother's a *****. You like to jack off dogs. That's right, you heard me. You like to grab that dog by the bone and rub it like a ski pole. Your dad? ***. Your priest? Straight. **** off and let me post. It's not true, it's all in good fun. Now go away.

That's nice Smash. I'm happy with who I am, and that's all that matters. As one of my friends likes to say, what other people think of you is none of your business. So you can shove it, because frankly I don't care.